{"id":7954,"date":"2017-12-22T19:57:51","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T19:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2898221&amp;preview_id=2898221"},"modified":"2017-12-22T19:57:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T19:57:51","slug":"in-newly-legalized-states-marijuana-is-the-it-gift-of-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/in-newly-legalized-states-marijuana-is-the-it-gift-of-the-season\/","title":{"rendered":"In newly-legalized states, marijuana is the \u201cit\u201d gift of the season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/in-newly-legalized-states-marijuana-is-the-it-gift-of-the-season\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"large-10 large-centered small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Dec 22, 2017, 11:36 am \u2022 Updated: Dec 22, 2017, 11:36 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <strong>Patrick Whittle<\/strong>, <em> The Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n<p>PORTLAND, Maine \u2014 Peter Bernard\u2019s Yuletide plans include dressing up in a tuxedo emblazoned with marijuana leaves, donning a green Santa hat and doling out cookie bars made with marijuana to his friends from a big pillowcase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s me exercising my right to give marijuana this Christmas,\u201d said Bernard, a Taunton, Massachusetts, pot lover who heads the Massachusetts Growers Advocacy Council when not doubling as \u201cPot Santa\u201d at events for weed enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone\u2019s plans are quite so flamboyant, but for many pot lovers, this Christmas is much more about reefer than wreaths. Gift-giving has long been a part of marijuana culture, and the drug\u2019s newly legal status is a source of Yuletide celebration in four states.<\/p>\n<p>Voters in California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts voted to legalize recreational marijuana last year, and some residents of those states will legally stuff stockings with spliffs for the first time this Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Because retail sales are operating in only one of those states \u2014 Nevada \u2014 Bernard and others excited about legalized pot said homegrown marijuana is one particularly popular gift.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI figure, I\u2019ve got all this pot, I might as well just give it away for Christmas,\u201d said James MacWilliams, of Portland, Maine, who started growing weed when it became legal and is giving away fancy jars of his stash this year. \u201cI told my friends, you\u2019re all getting a little bit of pot for Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Others plan to give marijuana-infused baked goods or even decorations made of pot plants.<\/p>\n<p>Statistics about legal sales of marijuana suggest a modest <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2016\/12\/20\/weed-sales-spike-december\/69537\/\">bump around the holidays.<\/a> In the four states where it was already legal, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, it has been \u201cgenerally a good month,\u201d slightly ahead of November and January, said Roy Bingham, chief executive officer of BDS Analytics, a firm that compiles data about the pot industry. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/02\/09\/colorado-marijuana-sales-2016\/73415\/\">December sales accounted for 9.38 percent of sales revenue in Colorado last year<\/a>, which is one percentage point above average, according to statistics provided by the firm.<\/p>\n<p>California\u2019s retail laws <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/12\/15\/california-marijuana-business-licenses-start\/94685\/\">begin next month<\/a>, while <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/12\/18\/massachusetts-cannabis-regulators-busy-rolling-rules-legal-cannabis\/94839\/\">Massachusetts\u2019 retail laws are scheduled for July<\/a> and Maine\u2019s are still being developed.<\/p>\n<p>Legalization means pot lovers can legally do something they\u2019ve always done, which is give away marijuana to people they love, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople consume cannabis on the holidays and they always have,\u201d Smith said. \u201cNow they are doing so through a regulated system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The drug <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/11\/29\/sessions-marijuana-enforcement-cole-memo\/93540\/\">remains illegal on the federal level<\/a>, which means activities such as driving it across state lines or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/12\/15\/marijuana-fedex-columbia-missouri\/94701\/\">sending it through the mail<\/a> are off limits. An elderly couple was arrested near Bradshaw, Nebraska, on Tuesday with about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/12\/21\/elderly-couple-weed-presents\/95064\/\">60 pounds of marijuana they described as future Christmas gifts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities will deal with incidents involving marijuana in interstate commerce \u201con a case by case basis,\u201d said Matthew O\u2019Shaughnessy, a Boston-based spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.<\/p>\n<p>Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, said marijuana was likely to be a part of Christmas in California this year whether it was legal or not.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCannabis has been pretty ubiquitous here for several generations,\u201d he said. \u201cHonestly, I think everyone\u2019s just a little more open about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>Gift-giving has long been a part of marijuana culture, and the drug&#8217;s newly legal status is a source of Yuletide celebration in four states. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[45,1099,6813,286,77,5667,9,6833,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[2628,3669,6818,2864,2655,5673,6835,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}